Hi, I am looking for some answers, and thought maybe posting in these forums might be a good start. I had my lower 2 wisdom teeth extracted on May 19th of this year. I am 32 years old, a non smoker, and I followed pretty much all the post op instructions to a T. About two weeks ago, when the jaw numbness that I experienced wore off, I discovered that my chin and jaw were in excruciating pain. I went back to the doctor and he told me I had dry socket and put some sort of packing in. He did this 2 times and told me to take advil. I've been keeping it really clean, but I'm still in extreme pain. The pain is not in the socket, it's in the chin, lip, etc. I cannot sing, I can barely talk without being in terrible pain. If I try to make an OOO mouth, it feels like someone is ripping my muscle out of my face. It hurts worse when I'm sitting and lying down and it is EXCRUCIATING when I'm in the car for some reason. My massage therapist says that it's still swollen.

I've had an X-ray just a week ago, would infections and stuff show up on that? The doctor said there's nothing really wrong on the x-ray and he's not sure why I am in that sort of pain. He says he thinks it will get better with the advil, but I"m not too keen on taking this strong a dose of advil for such a long time. My stomach's not great to begin with.

Anyway, i also bit my lip repeatedly when it was still numb, could this have something to do with it?

I guess I'm really looking for an ETA on when I can expect this to start to heal, and I'm looking to find out if it's going to heal on its own or if it's something I've got to go back and harass my doctor about. I was there 3 times last week, so he's definitely taking this seriously. He seems to feel that it's just going to go away on its own, but it hasn't really improved much since Memorial Day.

Any help that anyone can give me would be most appreciated. I'd do anything just to be able to sleep at night.

ps - this does not feel like TMJ, either. I had TMJ, that's why I got my teeth out. The TMJ seems to have actually cured itself because of the surgery.

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p31woman (09-03-2012)

Hi,
As long as there is no infection present it's a good possibility the muscles are in spasm. That frequently happens with wisdom teeth removal. Your mouth is held open for an extended time and the surgery itself causes swelling making the muscles go into spasm even more.

Try warm water rinses with salt water (1/4 tsp to 8oz) and warm compresses to the outside of your jaw. Gentle massage can help, too.

It can take awhile to resolve itself.

Hope this helps,
Best to you,
Gellia

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iamtheghost (06-07-2011)

I assume that from looking at the xrays, there were no tooth fragments left in the jaw. Fragments can cause pain and problems.

How long did the numbness last? If the numbness lasted more than a few hours, I would suspect that the nerves in your jaw were injured during the wisdom tooth removal.
The nerves may be inflammed or injured, causing the great pain through your jaw and chin. Or the surrounding tissues are swollen and compressing the nerves in the jaw. If the pain continues to last, and it's severe enough that regular OTC painkillers can't dull the pain, you may want to see or get a recommendation for an ENT (ear, nose, and throat) doctor that can take a look at your jaw and nerves.

Good luck and hope you get better soon

Last edited by dknight211; 06-06-2011 at 04:12 PM.

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iamtheghost (06-07-2011)